


gods and sinners

by twofoldAxiom



Series: cultural worldbuilding-heavy Alternia AU [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Alternate Universe - No Game, Bathing/Washing, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Casteism | Hemophobia (Homestuck), Explicit Sexual Content, Fictional Religion & Theology, Genital Piercing, Hemospectrum Kink, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Religion Kink, Ritual Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24690526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofoldAxiom/pseuds/twofoldAxiom
Summary: It's the first Bright Season of the sweep, and you've set out to make an offering at the temple of Pulse and Haze. Your name is Equius Zahhak, and you should have done some theological research before this endeavor.
Relationships: Karkat Vantas/Equius Zahhak
Series: cultural worldbuilding-heavy Alternia AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997605
Comments: 15
Kudos: 66





	gods and sinners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kachek47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kachek47/gifts).



> Written as a challenge to myself to finish something by 6/12/2020 for Karkat Day!  
> I actually managed it, looks like.
> 
> Also I didn't intend for there to be nearly as much worldbuilding as went on but I guess that's just what I do, isn't it?
> 
> Thank you Kachek47/Bo for giving me the inspiration to write this!
> 
> DISCLAIMER: No actual gods show up in this fic. Karkat is a temple prostitute.

The seasons have turned warm again, the air damp as breath and the roads baked hot under bare feet. That you're going to a temple in this weather, and not just any temple but to the gods Pulse and Haze, is only going to worsen your discomfort.

Ah, but you aren't high caste enough to worship the Mirthful Messiahs, and you were never attracted to the public worship of such gods as Fortune, or Silence, or even Fate. Blood is something all trolls understand, something all trolls worship, and while you don't particularly enjoy the thought of rubbing shoulders with the vile rabble of the lower-blooded castes (indeed, it flushes you with mortified shame to think of it, and you perspire even more), you can tell yourself that such remarkable sacrifice may be construed as pious among your peers.

Piety is a noble, highblooded trait, and what are you if not the model of your caste? It's unthinkable to be anything less.

Your name is Equius Zahhak, and you _cannot_ be your ancestor.

It crosses your mind that choosing to worship at the temple to Pulse and Haze this season might make you seem like a lowblood sympathizer, if not worse, so you'll have to watch yourself during this excursion. The temple is in one of the most crowded areas of the city, and while you're safely tucked away from the crowd by the use of one of your own creations (not unlike a palanquin, though it makes use of robotic legs rather than pallbearers, much more reliable and stable on these ill-kept roads), looking out the window is... it's not promising, to say the least.

Supplicants crowd the entrance even at this hour of the early morning, throngs of the desperate and destitute in a wailing sea around your palanquin. You knew they would be; piety is noble, but actual superstition is frightfully common, and the blessed water of the temple's cleansing pools glow Imperial red in the coming sunrise.

You've heard they truly believe one can cleanse the soul and body of impurity at this time, at this meeting of the scorching sun and soothing waters. In some distant way, you feel a kind of revulsion at such simplicity of thought.

Thus you consider your options: Forge ahead, and thereby walk through the crush of bodies to reach the temple and get this over with, or wait long enough that you won't have to touch anyone here, wherein you'll have to wait an absolutely disgraceful amount of time for this trip.

A hard choice. But not that hard. You wrinkle your nose as they run into the cleansing pools as the first light of dawn touches the water. It's a mad, desperate dash once the light comes, to reach the water before the rays become too intense to bear. Some of the acolytes have to come out and command some order among these people, staves cracking against the ground, voices and bells reverberating in the courtyard.

The crowd takes what feels like hours to disperse, some going home and some going deeper into the temple for whatever reasons they may have, and you're glad you'd had the foresight to bring drinks in this heat. Your palanquin is a blessed source of shade as the sun climbs higher, but if you spend much longer in here, you're going to cook in your own sweat.

The thought of using the cleansing pools after everyone else makes you balk, though. Perhaps you can skip that part of all this business, as long as you make a generous enough donation in the temple proper. Your own baths will be more than adequate, once you get home.

You've made up your mind, then. You step out of the palanquin and direct it beneath a tree, where it folds its legs up under it and it would take a powerful psionic indeed to steal it, if they so dared. The sun bites into your skin even now, and it's going to get worse the longer you dawdle, so you walk past the cleansing pools and hurry towards the temple itself.

"Hey, you! Stop right there, damnit, where do you think you're going, the fucking market?!"

Oh, fiddlesticks. You flush even darker, sweat beading on your brow at the reprimand. Who talks like that at a temple that isn't even dedicated to the Messiahs?

 _One of Pulse and Haze's devotees, apparently._ You stare, dumbfounded, as this short, scowling troll marches up to you, dressed in the same belted, sheetlike robe that all the temple's keepers wear. It's wet and transparent up to his hips, clinging suggestively to his legs where he's evidently been standing in the pools. Is he one of the acolytes charged with bathing the visitors? _Is that why he's approaching you?_

He confirms as much, gesticulating towards the pools with a snarl. "Do you know what these are for? Because I'm going to spell it out for you, since you've _clearly_ forgotten. I don't _dare_ assume a _highblood_ could forget something as important as _washing his sweaty ass before entering a holy place._ "

"I assure you, I'm plenty clean enough to go into a temple just to- to leave, a few offerings..." You mutter, and as he comes close enough to really see in the blinding daylight, choke. You blink behind your sunglasses and readjust them, and then pull them away from your eyes entirely to make sure you're seeing correctly. "You're a _mutant?_ "

"Oh, here we go." He rolls his eyes, the most hideous red you've ever seen. "I live here. I'm one of the temple's keepers, in fact, which is why I'm wearing this floaty getup in the first place. Do you have a problem with that? Take it up with the head of the temple, not me, and before you do that, strip."

"P... Pardon?"

"You heard me, you moistened reprobate, now _strip_." He barks, crossing his arms and fixing you with a glare that would make an Empress second guess herself. You're about halfway through actually getting undressed before you realize this is ridiculous. You reach up to wipe the sweat off your face and frown, and he narrows his eyes at you.

"I know this is probably hard to take in, _sir._ " He says, his voice low and tired and almost dangerously sharp, like he's said these words in this exact order a hundred times before. "Especially from, as you said, a mutant! But that's what it is: The temple adheres to rules older than me _and_ you, and that includes _being cleansed before entering._ "

"Surely you can make an exception for one such as I. Especially regarding our respective stations." Your voice has gone hoarse. This whole situation is ludicrous in the extreme. You wipe at your face with your sleeve, almost soaked through.

"The Grand Highblood himself is bathed before he enters. Are you saying you're too good for the water that cleanses the _Grand Highblood?_ " An unwitting shiver goes down your spine and pools between your thighs. You shake your head. He continues with a derisive grunt. "The sun's coming up, too, and I don't want to be out here until midday. If you want to enter the temple for _any_ reason, this is what you do, and I'm only going to say it one more time, before I bodily tackle you into that pool while you're still half-dressed: Strip."

That this mutant nearly a full head shorter than you should inspire such a sense of _awe_ feels... deeply thrilling. Certainly, as thrilling as it is shameful. That he so casually invokes your bloodright while having none of his own feels outright _obscene,_ and you deeply, deeply wish you could hide how this- how _he-_ is making you feel as you remove your clothes and set them in a neat pile. He nods in approval and that same flush you felt between your legs returns a hundred fold, and it sends you _reeling._

"That was easier than the last blueblood dragging his bulge through here, at least, so I'll give you that."

The words strike you like a solid slap in the face. You blush even brighter, but he doesn't seem to notice- or if he does, he's not concerned. You don't know which thought flusters you more.

He takes your clothes and places them on one of the many boulders surrounding the pools; platforms to keep belongings dry, you realize, where you'd thought they were mere decoration. Nude and browbeaten, you wade into the water and try to keep your head high and your back straight.

Nudity has never bothered you. The blueblooded physique is a work of art to be appreciated, especially yours, honed to perfection with long hours of training and rigid discipline. If there is anyone to feel ashamed, it should be the lowbloods who dare look upon you as though they deserve to.

And yet.

Your skin prickles with more than sunlight. The water, rushing cool between your knees, only makes you more aware of how exposed you are. You'll have to hurry like he said, to avoid sunburn and get back to your hive as quickly as possible, and perhaps to save what little remains of your pride.

Too late do you remember that he has to touch you, _bathe_ you, as part of your cleansing. He drops into the pool with a faint splash and wades towards you through the water. Little waves and ripples in the pool lap at his upper thighs and soak through his robes, turning them transparent on his skin; the delta of fabric between his thighs, where the cloth hangs away from his legs, is just enough to preserve his modesty in the barest sense of the word.

There's nothing modest about it, to be sure; not when you can so clearly see the curve of his hip, the crease of his groin, through his soaked clothes, bare of any undergarments whatsoever. Distantly, you remember an echo of the cleansing that Pulse and Haze require of their devotees, and feel the weight of your bulge aching behind your sheathe. Will he be required to administer _that_ as well?

"Are you done staring yet?" He says, when he finally reaches you. He has a little jug in one hand and a bar of soap in the other, small enough that they must have been hidden in some fold of his robes, and a washcloth draped over the crease of an elbow. Your disgust must show on your face because his expression sours further. "Oh, don't tell me, you don't want to use lowblood soaps. You wouldn't be the first."

"That isn't what I was thinking at all." Your throat still feels tight around every word. "Merely that I had assumed I would be washing myself. That _is_ something I can do."

"I don't doubt it, but that's not why I have to get my hands all over you, dipshit." Again, you're stunned to silence. Such language! You're so used to lowbloods speaking with deference towards you, or at least, _less_ vitriol. "You've gotten this far. You can handle having another troll touch you for ten fucking minutes, especially for your worship."

Ten minutes? You've never had anyone but your moirail touch you for so long, or so intimately. Your bulge does another twitch in your sheathe, and it's taking all your concentration not to let it slip out and embarrass you further.

"What's your name?" You ask before you can stop yourself. He stops lathering the washcloth, and it's his turn to look confused.

"Karkat Vantas." He says. "Call me Karkat if you need to call me anything at all, but try not to need it."

Vantas. An archaic word for Signless. A reminder of his casteless blood.

How disgustingly, exquisitely appropriate. He must have been named here.

"Get _down_ here, you royal bulgeblister, I can't wash you if I can't _reach_ you." It's a wonder that the vulgarity of it doesn't make you physically recoil, and instead makes the weight of your bulge that much more prominent in your mind. You kneel in the pool and shudder as he pours water over your head with the jug, shockingly cold on your back and shoulders, but a blessed distraction from the uncomfortable tightness of your sheathe.

When he touches you at last, he scrubs you roughly and thoroughly, scouring you with meticulous attention. "Raise your arms," He says, insultingly commanding, so used to being listened to. Your bulge twitches again, thick with blood; you feel your entire body go taut as he pours more water over you and then soaps your sides and in the pits under your arms, and it feels like there is no greater indignity you could face right now than this.

"Turn your head. No, the other way; watch where my fucking hand moves. Are you listening to a word I say or are you too busy having a stroke about being bathed in public?" His fingers coil in your hair and you think he's going to pull your head to the side as he's directing, but he merely works the soap into your scalp. As if he knows what you'd just thought, he mutters, "Strong roots, huh, probably couldn't rip out any of it if I'd tried. I know you're ridiculously built but it looks like you've got some kind of freakish natural advantage, too."

You imagine him pulling your head back by his grip on your hair; it would hurt, yes, it would hurt even if he didn't manage to pull out a single strand. Your mind wanders as he brings his hands down to the back of your neck, fingers on either side of your throat and yet too small to close around it. You groan. He stiffens.

You feel your bulge slide out of your sheathe, only part of the way, but stiff and repulsive and _throbbing._ It's the one part of yourself that you find a physical imperfection, that which neither heals nor can be fixed.

He sighs and takes his hands away. Curses upon curses too terrible to repeat flash across your mind, knowing your will isn't strong enough to bear all of it; the feeling of his hands smoothing down your shoulders, almost hot with his blood (so red, so lurid and vile) or how he stands imperiously over you while you're on your knees, your bulge thrust impudently out in the open-

"I can't believe it." He says, growling as he returns his hands to scrubbing down your back. The roughness of the washcloth somehow doesn't deter your bulge at all; if anything, it's sliding further out of your sheathe. "How big is that monstrosity? I knew you were touch-starved and desperate, but I didn't think you'd get your bulge out _before_ I put the moves on you."

You nearly jump, a crack and a warm almost-pain rising from your lower back. He's smacked you, not hard but _loud_ , right above one buttock. "Stand up so I can wash your legs."

"This is- this is completely unneighcessary-" Fiddlesticks, you're so worked up you've resorted to _puns_. "I demand you stop this at once."

"We're not done and it's completely fucking necessary, stop _whining_ and get up, you're not a wriggler _._ " Another smack, above the other buttock; this time you hurry to stand, blue in the face and probably _dripping_. You gasp, shivering, as one of his hot little hands closes over the shaft of your bulge. Your knees tremble, and you force yourself to breathe. "Hmm, a lot harder than I was expecting. But not the weirdest thing I've seen, I can work with this."

"I would _strongly_ advise a little more decorum in handling my body." Your breath sounds rough in your own ears. He lets go, thankfully, but now _he_ kneels and oh, he's at about eye-level with it, isn't he, but he's completely ignoring it in favor of doing as he said, scrubbing dutifully at your legs. The smell of sandalwood permeates the air, and underneath it, your own amorous musk.

"And I strongly advise you let me do my fucking job, because it's hot out here and I have other things to attend to besides you and your overly-demure bullshit, _sir Highblood._ " He looks up at you, so close and yet barely touching you at all, at least until his hands reach your groin and your whole body tenses, your bulge bobbing heavily.

You groan again, desperate to choke the sound down as the washcloth slides over the lips of your nook. Fuck. _Fuck._ Your skin feels like fire every time his wrist brushes your inner thighs, and you don't dare look down to see his face so close to your bulge lest you taint the pool blue immediately.

(It would wash away easily, though; the stream of water runs quick, if not strong, through grates in the sides of the pool. It _does_ seem more and more that he's going to cleanse your sins with his own blessed body here.)

(The thought repulses you, horrifies you; it intrigues you in equal measure.)

He stands, the water running down his body in sparkling rivulets; his robes are almost completely transparent now, tight against his skin, hiding just about nothing at all except where the creases peel away from him. You fixate on the bright slashes of his grubscars. You gulp, blood roaring in your head, and his mouth moves but you're not sure what he's saying.

He walks behind you. A hand finds your hair again, tugging down as he presses a knee to your calf in silent command. You bite your lip and kneel again, and your hearing clears up just enough to hear him murmuring down to you like to a spooked animal, "You don't have to act like this is some great horror inflicted upon you, for fuck's sake. I'm almost done."

It's disappointing and soothing all at once, his gravelly voice assuring you that the ordeal is almost over. He pours the water over your head and you tilt your face down to watch swirls of filth and soap carried away by the current. Once more, the washcloth is scrubbed over you, in the divots of your grubscars and down the tense line of your back, over your chest, all along your arms. He's done this hundreds of times today, most likely, on hundreds of trolls, hundreds of bodies worth of filth washed away in the blessed pools.

You want him on your bulge again, so badly you feel like you're going to explode; every second between his touches is torture. Does he delight in denying you? He must, or he wouldn't take so long, or linger so sweetly, or know he can demand so much of you and you'll bend to every command.

He grabs your unbroken horn and you gasp, your world narrowing down to his voice and his fingers. 

"Get up, asshole; you're almost ready." He tugs, and you move slowly, like you're in a dream. Is this a dream? The water ripples around him, splashing softly against the sides of the pool. The sunlight throbs in the backs of your eyes, or maybe that's your own heartbeat.

Karkat pulls harder. "Get up! People are staring!" 

And they are. They should. You're a vision of highblood fitness and strength. Yet with your bulge in the open and this mutant dragging you along- you're going to ruin his hard work with more of your sweat if you don't hurry, and besides, even you can feel the effects of sunburn by now. His face is flushed, pinkish-red beneath the grey, from exertion and the surrounding, humid heat. The light on the water catches in his eyes.

He doesn't have to ask a third time. 

He drags you away from the main pools, though, towards a shaded alcove. A carved likeness of Haze in the same red stone as the pools looks down on the two of you, a gash across his chest spilling water that pours into a grate. Karkat directs you over the grate.

"My clothes-" Your clothes are still on the rock beside the pools.

"Nobody will steal them." He says. "They're unclean."

You'd argue but. He silences you with ease, with a hand on your bulge while he presses his overheated body against your side. All your muscles clench tight in that moment as he starts stroking, slow, firm pumps with fingers that don't quite meet all the way around, and a dribble of blue leaks out of you and drips down his knuckles, into the grate.

" _Nnngh_..."

Was that sound you? It was. Your breathing comes faster as he strokes harder, squeezing, wringing out more geneslime. Your hands find the wall and clench into fists as you hump against his touch, the wet slap of your hips against his hand echoing in the alcove.

"You're _really_ pent up." He muses, casual as anything. You burn with it, with shame and desire and brute, animal _need._ "Maybe it's a good thing you came here after all; I can only imagine how fucking repressed you are."

" _Karkat..._ " You shudder as he twists his fingers over the bloated flesh of your bulge. His breath is hotter than the air around you, wet as a kiss. You think you might want to kiss him, and then you think how depraved that is.

"Look at me." He says. You do, you really do, even as your eyes cross with every jerk of his hand, every tremor that he pulls from your body. You can't focus on his eyes so you focus on his lips, the pouty curve of them as he forms his words, the grey sliver of his tongue, the flashes of sharp teeth. "This is your penance. This is what the gods ask of you. Do you know how the body is cleansed?"

He doesn't give you the time to answer, pulling his hand away while you're humping the air and whimpering. It's a terrible thing, caught between the pleasure of his touch and craving it like this. You almost sob when he puts his other hand on you, your head tilting back as you moan.

" _Look at me._ " He hisses. 

You look down. Sweat pours off your forehead. 

"The flesh is cleansed through work and ritual, offered in the name of Pulse. That's why supplicants come in the hottest part of the sweep, and why you're supposed to make the journey on foot. Which you've already failed to do, by the way!" 

Is that lust in his tone, or anger? His voice has gone husky, but his hold on your bulge is almost punishing, squeezing one moment and then feather-light the next. 

" _The spirit_ is cleansed by Haze. In the peace after a great exertion, or if we're going to go there anyway, that sacred moment after release. It's then that the soul is made its cleanest; when trolls like _you_ are made worthy of entering the temple. Did you know that?"

"I..." Your breath hitches. He rubs his thumb across the flat tip, milking another dribble of slime out of you. "I did not."

"How long has it been since you've cum?" He doesn't switch hands this time, stroking you with both of them in concert. Your bulge, angled upwards, weeps blue all over his fingers, slicking them further as he contemplates the mess of you. " _Hah,_ I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first time in a sweep since someone's touched you. Look at this. _Look at this!_ You're practically stoppered up. Do you feel it?"

You do, by the gods you do, you feel the crushing weight of your own denial now, suffocating you as surely as if he'd stepped on your throat. You groan again, biting your lip so hard you're sure to draw blood.

He takes his hands away again. You gasp for air.

"I can't believe my arms are getting tired." Are you imagining things or does he look _concerned?_ He shakes his wrists, little droplets of blue flicking away with the motion.

"You..." You gulp, trying to gather yourself. "You're not going to-"

"I'm not going to what? Make you cum? I _could_ just make you jerk it into that grate, couldn't I, if I were a more neglectful follower of Pulse and Haze. If I were more like _you._ " He practically spits. His eyes are like fire, all-consuming and hungry. "But it's my duty and an honor to assist you in stripping the impurities from your soul, you know, and we take this matter _very_ _seriously_ around here."

There's a jut in the alcove, almost beneath the carving of Haze. He sits on it, legs spread, the tantalizing expanse of soaked cloth he's wearing still lying over his lap. At least, it is until it isn't, as he pulls it aside and confirms without a doubt that he wears no underwear.

Something glints on his sheathe. Two silvery beads, one on either side of the slit. Just barely visible behind them, hidden in the slit of the sheathe itself, a connecting bar.

You've never been so transfixed in your life.

"That _can't_ be real." You blurt. He sneers.

"It is. You've probably heard of it, haven't you? That our bulges are locked away when we pledge our lives to the temple, so we can focus better on wringing out every last impurity from hundreds of visitors night and day. That we _surrender_ our own release in the service of the gods and less-devout trolls." 

He spreads his legs wider, and one hand glides down his belly, resting just above the sealed slit. You do your best not to drool, though your bulge is doing plenty of that for you. "Probably the most sensationalized part of the whole cult. It's so we have the energy to keep fucking hopeless cases like you until you manage to have an orgasm."

You sputter, but you don't dare look away. Not as he pushes aside his robes further and dips a finger into his nook. Your own nook tingles in sympathetic desire at the sight, at the pinkish stains his fingers come away with, and you think you whine a little as he brings those fingers to your lips. 

Your tongue slides out of your mouth without you willing it to, and you lick his fingers clean, sucking them into your mouth with a shiver.

You follow as he curls his fingers behind your teeth, careful of the jagged points; you don't want to draw blood, his blood, that singular manifestation of the wretched and sublime. You're pulled towards the jut by your jaw, guided to sit while Karkat climbs into your lap.

He straightens his fingers and frees them from your mouth with aching gentleness, steadies himself with a grip on your shoulder while his free hand guides yours to his hips. His robes are still wet and cold against your legs, but he's so hot it's like holding the sun.

Karkat smiles, _really_ smiles, eyes softened with the terrible promise of it. He cups your face as he settles his nook right above the flat head of your bulge, grinding his hips back and forth.

"This should be easier than trying to jerk you off." He says. "Just don't let me fall."

You grit your teeth as he lowers himself, the heat of him sinking down over your bulge. It's different from his hands, smoother, more absolute, and it just keeps going. He doesn't moan, merely holds his tongue between his teeth. His brow furrows in concentration. His thighs tremble under your hands.

The water trickling from the fountain, the cicadas in the trees, the rasp of your own labored breathing as his nook swallows you up. You have to fight the urge to demand more of him, the urge to pull him down and take him at your own pace.

A snort. A laugh. It's completely inelegant, sharp as a barking hound. Your eyes had closed at some point, and when you open them again, you meet his gaze head-on.

"Stop holding back, you're defeating the fucking point of this." He says, grinding down on you harder. His nook- _oh-_ he's taken every inch of you, that hot, wet hole stretched tight around your bulge. Tighter than it should be, you think; there's a faint swell in his abdomen, and you're not sure if that's your or his own bulge making it, but you can feel the swollen heat of him trapped in his own sheathe, pressing against you through the thin upper wall of his nook.

"I'm- I'm sorry," You murmur, because you don't know what else to do. He takes hold of your horns, forces you to look down at where your bodies meet before he rises on his knees. The cool air on your bulge is such a sharp contrast to the heat of his body you gasp. He shivers.

"I want you to pray." He says. "Offer your orgasm to Pulse and Haze, and your pleasure to me. I'm going to wring every drop of filth out of you if it's the last thing I do."

Your mouth goes dry at such casual blasphemy, from an acolyte of the temple no less, and then waters again as he sinks himself back down on your bulge with a sudden drop. He bounces on you so suddenly you have to catch him, his wet robes emphasizing the slap of skin on skin.

Trickling water, chirping insects, animal grunts of pleasure and pain. Your world narrows down to his breath and his body, his hands on your horns and your hands on his hips. " _Pray_ , you miserable sack of desperation and _shit_ , or are you so distracted by some mutant nook that you've lost your fucking mind?" He swears, breathy with exertion. "Offer up your penance, you wretched _fuck!"_

You groan, half-formed words dying on your tongue. Your voice catches in your throat like something's holding it there. You're going to suffocate on it, burn up in this moment; your wretched soul so full of taint that it's all there is, all you can focus on, and he's going to kill you in your purification.

He sighs above you and swivels in your lap, making you nearly sob with the pleasure of it. Shame and desire flush your whole body as his thighs squeeze around your hips. 

"I'll pray for you, then, when you finish up here, since you _clearly_ can't do it right just now."

You're not sure what to do with your hands, so you squeeze. You're sure to leave bruises, but he doesn't so much as stutter.

"Can't believe the fucking _audacity_ you must have to show up at a temple and have no conscious idea about what you're supposed to do when you get there. What kind of gross fucking ignorance is that?"

He grinds and bounces down on you in shorter thrusts now, grunting softly as he does so; raises his hips and rolls them down in tight little circles. It's no less intense than the longer, harder strokes, and you feel yourself rising to meet him, thrusting up off the jut you're sitting on. Your feet slip on the tile around the grate, your legs tremble with the effort, and still you try.

He leans against your chest, pulls your head back up so you can look him in the eye. You could kiss him, this close. You could crush your mouths together and swallow the curses straight from his lips. His skin burns you even through the fabric of his soaked robes, sliding wetly against you as he _fucks_ you.

"P-please,"

You don't know what you're asking for. He groans, softly; you feel his nook squeezing and rippling around you, a gush of wetness between your thighs, dripping down the crease of your own nook to puddle in your seat. He still speaks, voice breathy in your ear.

"Are you almost there or what?" He growls. His face is flushed and his lips trembling, his whole body taut as a bowstring. "I can feel it. You're still holding back on me."

"I- please- I'm almost-" You can't believe you're begging, and yet it's the most natural thing in the world. You moan, you sob, you try to thrust into him, bouncing him in your lap, pulling him down with your hands.

"Let it all out." He shivers, clenching around you. His lips meet the side of your neck. "Let yourself be cleansed as I have, let Haze wring the filth from your soul."

You hadn't even realized he'd come. The warmth spilling between your thighs, the shivery way he speaks- your eyes roll up in your head, your teeth clench. You're _definitely_ going to bruise him, and you can only imagine the repercussions you'll have to face for that later, but in this moment there is nothing. You feel the first gout of geneslime working its way up your bulge, fattening it with anticipation, the flare at the end widening, hoping to keep Karkat in place as you fill him.

Your mind, and the world around you, fizzles out like a smothered flame. You know peace, for a moment; that sacred moment after release when you know the true names of the gods. Warm hands cup your face, and you think you might hear words, but you can't tell what they are.

You come back to yourself. Karkat is standing. When had you let go of him? When had he pulled himself off your bulge? Your bulge- you see a streak of blue across the grate, see him filling his little jug with water from Haze's fountain. Your geneslime is washed away with a whisper, like it had never been there at all.

No streaks of blue on his thighs, no, you didn't finish inside him after all. Not even on his hands. How long had you been out?

"Can you feel your walkstubs yet or what?" He snaps, splashing your lap with more water. His robes are wet with more water in turn, as he washes away the last of the sweat from your earlier... coupling.

Hm. Your bulge still twitches weakly at the thought, but he turns his attention back to washing your geneslime down the grate as if he'd seen nothing.

"Don't look so disappointed." He says.

You blink.

"Disappointed about what?"

You'd just had maybe the best orgasm of your life. You don't think you can feel anything but blank and content right about now. 

He seems to think otherwise, as he straightens up and re-ties his belt. The little jug is hidden away in some secret fold of his clothes, already starting to dry in the muggy air. "Your type is usually disappointed about not getting to cum inside an acolyte. I'll tell you why: If you did, I'd have to bathe for another week to be worthy of doing my job again. You hold yourself back so much, your impurities concentrate. You'd make _me_ unclean."

Your mind wanders. The thought of him having to bathe himself as he had bathed you, and then touch himself here, or perhaps have another acolyte touch him... No, that actually hurts to think about. You're too wrung out to think of it right now. Maybe he's on to something about this whole purity business.

"You can go into the temple now if you want. You had an offering to make, didn't you?" He licks sweat off his upper lip. "Come back again soon enough, and maybe you'll still be good enough to cum inside me." 

Oh. That's an incentive towards piety if you'd ever heard one.

But he's right. You hope your clothes are still on that rock. You gather your wits and try to stand, unsteady as a newborn foal. You have to lean against the wall. At least moving gives your aching bulge the right message, and it pulls itself back into your sheathe quickly enough.

It still twinges a little when you look back at him, and see him kneeling over the grate. He doesn't unscrew the piercing on his sheathe, but he tugs the bonebulge up, just a little, just enough to squeeze out a thin, viscous stream of reddish slime.

You're not sure why it seems more private, more intimate, than how he'd just thoroughly ridden you into your seat. Blushing, you hurry back to the pool and find your clothes. They're where you'd left them, even, and perfectly dry, though it's a bit of a pain to walk across the hot stone and actually fetch them, and your shoes fell off the boulder and into a puddle.

Fiddlesticks. You'll have to be more careful, next time. 

Will there be a next time?

Karkat Vantas comes to mind as you dress and consider. You enter the temple itself, reeking of incense, surrounded by acolytes busying themselves with work and prayer or what simply appears to be play. None of them look up at you as you finally reach the offering table and leave your gift there.

It's strange to see what other people have left. Animals, vegetables, linens. Jars of honey, a basket of bread. It's a picture of what lowbloods deem important, isn't it?

There's a money box, too. Nearly empty on first glance, but you know better; highbloods don't carry coins. You leave your offering in there and hurry out, back into the sunlight, and then back into the bustle of the city. Your palanquin perks up at the first sight of your heat signature, and you give it a little pat on the snout sensor before climbing inside.

It's only back on your estate that you consider what the next time might be like. Will Karkat still be there, you wonder? It would be strange to be attended by him twice, and yet.

His burning eyes, his pouty lips. The way he held your horns and your shoulders and your hair.

You consider what it might have been like if he hadn't wriggled out of your grip. If you'd held him a little firmer. You consider the sight of him sighing, moaning, writhing on your bulge as he takes your load, as he bloats with it. Would he still curse you? Or would he be silenced as you had, wordless with pleasure? Would he be horrified that you'd sullied him such? Would he cry?

Or would he punish you?

It's been hours since you were at the temple, now; the sun is high and you need to prepare to sleep. Perhaps it will do you some good to carry what practice you'd learned from there to your home. Certainly, in pursuit of piety, one must do his best.

If you dream of fiery eyes and demanding hands, perhaps it's a sign. Perhaps that temple is worth more than the appearance of piety after all.


End file.
